duergar photos on Flickr

Merry Christmas to those who celebrate, and Happy Holidays to those who don't! When I made my recent habitat series, I initially wanted to make six, with one for each of these characters, but ultimately ran out of time. Still, I wanted to share them all with you anyways, so I hope you enjoy these festive (and not so festive) folks! If you're interested in the lore at all, read on!

While many people associate the dwarven holiday of Gotmas with Father Gotmas(for obvious reasons), the holiday was originally a far less merry celebration. Translating in dwarvish to mean "day of triumph," Gotmas was a celebration of the victory that Gotramor and the Elysians brought to the dwarves when they ousted the old, warmongering dwarvish king, and fulfilled the promise of finally ending the Unending Wars. For centuries, it was a holiday celebrated with a great feast, though minus some of the revelry and fun decor. When Nikolaj Frostbeard began to see families down on their luck struggle to partake in any sort of preparation for a large feast, he decided to take the holiday a bit further.

After years of helping out struggling dwarves with treats, desserts, baked goods, and eventually even toys and gifts, he had become quite the hot topic. The cheer he was so resolute to spread drew the ire from even those that lie buried under the earth, forgotten by society. It's said that a Duergar from deep in the Underdark resented the Gotmas celebrations so much, he took it upon himself to ruin them one year. The Duergar—known as Vladimir Krampuscan—heard tale of Nikolaj's exploits, sourcing all of his gifts and merriment from a "Realm of Wishes," and decided to venture there himself.

Vlad decided one day, when Nikolaj was on his way to enter the Realm of Wishes, to sabotage his mission and venture in after him, though he failed to properly account for the manner of Nikolaj's portal. Taunting the dwarf, he warned that Gotmas would cease to be, and tackled Nikolaj through the wormhole. Without a specific setting in mind as he crossed through, however, he plunged into darkness, tumbled through time and space, and fell unconscious. When he finally came to in the Realm, he discovered himself in a place where all the extremes had collided, and wishes that defied one another came to do battle. The opposing wishes chose to align themselves with two primordial forces, whose endless battle was thought impossible to resolve.

Krampuscan stood before a world half frozen by the harrowing winds of winter, and half ablaze with the scorching flames of summer heat. It was there that he met the Miser of Heat and the Miser of Snow. In a twisted turn of fate, he was somehow able to persuade them to pause their conflict, and direct their war and aggression elsewhere—somewhere their destructive might and potential could actually be realized. Now with command over ice and flames, Vladimir carved a portal into the ground, and brought his newfound allies into the world whence he came, ready to destroy Gotmas once and for all.

It is said that in his ambush, Nikolaj landed in a distant region in the Realm of Wishes, and had to venture a long, long way back to his workshop, the place from where he could return to his world. Along the way, he met a couple of allies who swore to help him, believing in his cause. Vixenia and Merry, thus, joined Nikolaj and journeyed far to reach his workshop. Stepping through his portal, he found his home in turmoil.

The city was besieged by Krampuscan and his sinister allies, spreading their destruction throughout the streets. Houses burned, shops froze over, and Nikolaj's people suffered. He took up arms, resolving to slay the Duergar and the interlopers, or die trying. When it seemed that all hope was lost, and ol' Frostbeard would meet his end that day, he was joined by two familiar friends.

Vixenia and Merry had journeyed from their world to his, to aid him in his fight to save Gotmas. An epic battle ensued, which inspired many a Gotmas song, and the tides had finally been turned. With Vixenia's sage wisdom on the balance of nature, and Merry's sound persuasive abilities and quick thinking, the Misers of Heat and Snow were once again pitted against each other, as Nikolaj delivered the final blow to Krampuscan. It is said the Defiler of Gotmas evaporated as Nikolaj's sacred hammer swung that final blow, leaving no body behind. With the remaining adversaries distracted by each other, the Guardians of Gotmas banished them back to their home plane, and ended the battle.

Vixenia and Merry stayed thereafter, aiding Nikolaj in his efforts to clean up the town, and restore his people's cheerful festive spirit, no matter how many years it took. The legendary exploits of Frostbeard earned him the moniker of "Father Gotmas," and dwarves all over the continent began to honor his bravery and mimic his gift-giving traditions. To most of the continent of Ridgar, Gotmas is simply a dwarven day of celebration and presents, but to dwarves themselves, it is a celebration of resilience, community, and the triumph of good over evil. While the damage of the Great Battle of Gotmas has long since been healed, the great irony remains: in his efforts to defile the holiday spirit of the dwarves, Krampuscan only ended up giving the dwarves even more reason to spread festive cheer.

Duergar Warlord by John Morey

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Leader of a slave raiding party.

The adventures of Leo Wayfarer and Damu the Kenku assassin: # 22 of 33- Grundy’s tower by Viva Lux

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Scene from a story wrote-

www.facebook.com/notes/viva-lux/the-adventures-of-leo-way...

The adventures of Leo Wayfarer and Damu the Kenku assassin: # 22 of 33- Grundy’s tower

It was the second time we were ever approached by the Rangers for a job. The Rangers rarely ever hired Mercs, you know all their business is dirty business, and so they rarely ever called for outside help. But they approached Damu and I for a job a second time, the last one when we first encountered the Lich Desmond.

I was buying a wagon for my sister when I two guys in black studded leather and black cloaks rode up to me on horseback in the middle of the afternoon. Damu and I had just recently gotten back from Nijiro and at first when I saw them approach me I assumed it was to ask questions about our job there. They rode up all calm, but had a weird look on their faces and were really nervous. A taller one, a guy with a lean pock-marked face and a nasty scar across his face spoke up, “Mr. Wayfarer, how quickly can you get you Kenku partner?”. I looked at him a little cocked eyed as it was clear they wanted more than just to talk, but I was also worried. I had a bad feeling about this one.

I shrugged a bit trying to play it cool and was like, “Meet me at my place after diner, I’ll get him.” The other Ranger, a smaller guy with his face wrapped in red cloth said, “Come with us to go get him, this can’t wait”.

So we got Damu and met in St. Gregory’s church. The church wasn’t open for service but they let us in on the Rangers authority. Damu eyed the altar apprehensively and it bothered the priest who let us in, but he quickly let the four of alone to talk in private.

The Ranger with the scar spoke,”I am Lieutenant Alderman, this is Sergeant Kooper. From what we gather a few years ago you two secured an artifact on behalf of a local Sorceress Alzaya. This artifact was a magical device of no apparent clear origin and was in the shape of a black orb made from an unknown material, is this correct?”. Damu spoke up, “Yes we found that in a cave in the jungles of Fazas. She had acquired it previously and someone working for her stole it. Has it been stolen again?”. The Ranger with his faces wrapped up, Sergent Kooper responded, “No the item in question was not stolen. Now what I am about to say remains between the four of us. You two have a solid reputation on getting your jobs done efficiently, and dealing with not only as well like to say ‘sensitive’ cases but also unusual ones. This case is both”.

Kooper and Alderman told us that a certain party, a Wizard named Grundy had ties with both the Rangers an Alzaya’s interests. Immediately I could tell what they hadn’t said, that Alzaya’s shady business was tied up somehow with their shady business through this guy Grundy. Not our concern really. Alzaya, who apparently was missing at the time (God knows how I wish that actually was the case) had gotten this guy Grundy to experiment with the black orb. He had a tower in the little village Fensport a few hours to the south. I knew Fensport was reputed to be a hot bed of smuggling and opium trafficking and assumed that this is what they were looking to cover for. They wanted us to go to Fensport and secure Grundy’s tower. There was some kind of unknown supernatural entity loose on the inside of the place that had asked for Damu and I by name. Apparently it had to do with the orb. Grundy and the orb itself were also missing. We had to go to the tower, secure the location, and not make a scene.

We left the early the next day and took the new wagon I got for my sister. We didn’t ride armored and the roads between Scardale and Fensport were pretty secured and well traveled, so I wasn’t worried about Bandits or other attacks. Fensport is an odd little place, odd in that there is clearly way too much money in what is supposed to be a little fishing village. The towns folk were nice enough people, and the center of the village was filled with little high end furniture stores and all sorts of fancy, charming Cafes. Not surprising it had neither a P.O.L.L. or an Army building but the Rangers had an obvious presence. They had a small fort there supposedly as a staging ground to patrol Fazas which was only a few hours to the south. Much to my dismay there wasn’t any place that catered towards vice except a few legitimate taverns, though in one place there I had one of the best pumpkin ales I ever had. We got a room a local Tavern and hung out for a day trying to dig up dirt on Grundy before we raided his tower.

Grundy apparently was a Dwarf, which is rare for a Dwarf to practice magic. To make it even stranger he also was an extremely pale and completely bald Dwarf who couldn’t be out in sunlight without wearing tinted goggles to protect his eyes. Grundy was neither liked nor hated by the people there. He kept to himself and had dropped a lot of coin on the town, including paying for a dock to be built for the community some 50 years ago prior. Because of that any eccentricities he may have shown were ignored, and most people figured what Wizards weren’t a little weird? I suspect too that the people of Fensport most likely enjoy their high standard of living and know to turn a blind eye to quite a lot in order to preserve that standard of living. I can’t blame them, it was a pretty little community and even the lowliest of fisherman had a decent little house and a decent little wife.

Grundy’s tower was a walled off 6 story tower built on the end of a ¾ mile long peninsula. If the town didn’t already have a light tower you might assume this was one passing by. All geared up we hopped over the wall and headed towards the tower.

I was a bit caught off guard by the interior of Grundy’s property. I was expecting fields or maybe a garden or something, but the entire outdoor property was carved rock, like one long stretching plaza of alcoves, statues, stairwells and fountains. It looked like perhaps the peninsula itself was solid rock and that Grundy had carved the rock to suit his tastes. Walking towards the tower we came upon a circular edifice on the ground that was lined with 12 standing stones that were carved in a way that when light shined on them they cast the figures of various monstrous creatures on the ground made from shadow. They were arranged in a way to seem like they were locked in battle. Also on the ground of the stone circle were carved various magic symbols and some script unknown to me but that bore resemblance to written Dwarven.

Upon closer inspection we found that the center of the circle was caked in blood and we found the served head of a fish-frog looking humanoid creature with two severed web hands, all badly rotten. I would assume it was the head and hands of a Kua-Toa, but the head was too rotten to tell for certain.

We kept going for a bit and then abruptly I caught the smell of something foul and fishy on the wind. Damu recoiled and ducked behind a life sized statue of a Unicorn. A section of the ground ahead opened up and a massive black snake as thick as a tree trunk with the head of a beautiful woman with long dark hair kept up in a diamond tiara rose sinuously out of the opening. Damu didn’t waste any time, he was already on top of the stone Unicorn letting loose arrows at the creature.

The thing had a face and if it had a face it most likely could talk, but whatever it had to say, if anything, we never found out. Damu hated anything with scales, weather snake or reptile and instantly the creature had a arrow logged where its left eye once was. The thing spoke some incantation and a column of flame barreled down at me. Dodging the burst of flame that this snake creature had willed forth I rolled forward and drawing my sword while lunging at it I managed to score a hit across its belly, but not as deep as I would have liked. Up close the head of the creature was still beautiful but almost twice as large as a human woman’s head. No matter as the creature lunged down to bite me in return for the belly slit and missing eye. I pulled out the way as the snake’s head went close to the ground and as it did an arrow went right into the top of its head killing it.

Damu jumped down from the statue and grabbed the gore splattered Tiara from the she-creatures head. He had to lift it with both his hands and could have worn it around his waist. I laughed a bit, and asked. “Do you know what this thing is?”. Damu responded, “Yea it’s called a Naga. We’re lucky we killed it quick, these things know magic. But they are born, they aren’t summoned or created beings.” I looked down into the hole it came out of. Below was a lit and rather posh furnished room of thick blankets and huge silk pillows each the size of a bed. We decided to enter the tower from the Naga’s trap door.

From the Naga’s room we found a hallway clearly built for it that headed towards the tower. As we got closer to the tower the air got cold and thick. I could faintly hear a sound that sounded like a mix of humming, the sound this one textile mill by my house would make and what at time sounded almost like mumbling in an unknown language. I again caught that foul fish smell and it dawned on me that up close the Naga had not produced that smell.

The tunnel up a head turned left and right and we could hear what sounded like metal being drug across the ground. Weapons drawn we kept going, then from around both corners each we saw what was producing that fetid stench. Two badly decomposed figures each about 5ft tall with long arms that held rusty metal hooks shambled towards us. Grundy or whoever, had bothered to animate the corpses of two Kua-Toa warriors to guard his property. He obviously had no love for the fish-men, but then again, who does? Zombies smell bad as it is, but fish zombies are a whole other order of disgusting. One clumsily swung its hook at my head which I swerved away from and stabbed my sword right through where its eye once was and popped it back out through the side of crumbling skull. Damu didn’t waste an arrow on the other, he mere leapt at it and severed its head before he even landed back on the ground. Undead are always an annoying fight, they almost never have any goods or gear to gear to loot.

Looking down either hall we saw that to the left was a stair case going down and to the right a stair case going up. The one to left was big enough for the Naga, the one to the right was not. We went down to the left first. The stairs opened up to a cave that was a secret dock. But what we saw at the docks was hard to explain. Instead of a ship with sails we saw a vessel docked that was shaped not unlike a shark and made entirely from black metal. It had no sails and it seemed one got in and out of it from a metal latch on top that had a wooden ladder that reached towards it. I had never seen anything like it nor have I heard even rumors of such a ship. Damu was equally dumbfounded, but looking at it he said, “Look closely at this thing. It has mechanical gears, this is some Dwarven machine for sailing underwater.” I had no other explanation for it and agreed. The thing looked foul, like a black sea monster that would stalk the depths. If it did indeed prowl the waters like Damu supposed it would make sense as to why Grundy had run in conflict with the Kua-Toa. The fish-men do not take kindly to trespass on their waters as any sailor or pirate could tell you. I could see why the Ranger’s had to seek outside help for this mission, this ship, if it was truly a ship, I could tell was an important secret best kept off of official report.

We headed upwards and came upon what was the front room of the tower. It was filled with ornate and clearly expensive furniture built for a Dwarfs proportions, but what it lacked in height it made up for in girth. Damu rested on a stout chair of suede and dark mahogany wood with feet carved like a dragon’s claws. The walls were lined with many paintings in gold frames and one in question stood out. It was a painting showing a scene of a vast cavern with its own lake or perhaps underground ocean, with massive stalagmites and stalactites rising out of the water or dipping into it that had oppressive looking citadels carved out of them. Looking closely at the painting I saw that the paintings signature was Grundy himself and that in fact he had painted all of the works of art hanging in his home. Clearly he was an artist of some skill.

Damu was looking at another painting on his own, then darted backwards a few steps drawing his sword. “Leo that fucking painting moved”, he said. I drew forth my blade and walked over towards the painting. I quick surmised that it was a self-portrait of Grundy himself. While clearly a Dwarf he did not look like any Dwarf I have ever known. The portrait showed a Dwarf without any hair on his head and a skin town an ugly pale gray, not unlike the color of ash. He had a beard of slightly darker color then his skin but it was look and presence about his depiction that was decidedly un-Dwarf like. Although Dwarves often come off as gruff or stern at time they have a deep seated sense of mirth and comradely about them. Even the Dwarves I have befriended over the years that were mercenaries who spent years away from their own people still had a sense of friendship and loyalty about them. Looking at the likeness of Grundy here I was looking at a Dwarf that was clearly not the product of the culture of hard work and hard play. Here was a grim and solitarily man who seemed like he spent his years alone plowing through ancient tomes of dark arcane lore and that was all he ever knew. What Dwarf lived like this? How did Alzaya come to know this unique creature?

Right as I pondered this I saw what Damu spoke of. The background texture of the painting was painted an odd purple-pink and in a portion of that I started to see a black dot shimmer and come forth. For a second I saw that Grundy’s eyes rolled into the back of his head and his likeness dissolved away. The black dot rose forth out of the painting but it was not solid, I could see through it. Then abruptly out of the painting issued forth a frothing mass of yellow-green haze that turned into an amorphous mass of the half-formed likenesses of beasts of prey, sea creatures and humanoid figures.

We backed away from the painting and what came out of it, swords drawn and ready to lunge at this apparition. The hazed coalesced into a single form, vaguely humanoid though larger than human proportions. I have seen a pregnant cow’s belly torn open and saw what her calf unready to born looked like. I imagine while we are still inside out Mothers stomach waiting to be born that we look not unlike this calf. This figure floating in the air before us looked not unlike what I imagine a humanoid creature would like if it was torn from its mother unready to be born. Except that also its right eye was massive out of proportion and it had all manner of tentacles writhing in the air about it. Grotesque as it was I had a pang of sympathy for it.

The air grew very cold around us and I could see frost growing on things around us. I could hear a faint grinding, buzzing sound and I could see that Damu’s feathers were sticking on end. He held firm though and was about to attack the creature before I held him back. Then words appeared in the painting where Grundy once was.

“The orb took me over, but I broke free. It took all of what is left of me, all of what is left of my soul to escape and hide in this painting. Alzaya took the orb and the orb took Alzaya. She is the Orb now, she is not Alzaya. She must be killed.”

Right as the last word appeared the painting dissolved in a mess of a pink-purple light and there was a loud sound like water rushing down a drain, and in that sound we could hear what sounded like a million incoherent gibbering voices.

We ransacked the place and found no other creatures or spirits. We took all of what we thought we Grundy’s magic tomes and research notes, none of which Damu or I could read. Though amongst a pile of open books we found a text written in Torin that I could read that spoke of a section of the mountains between Hados and Lu’Hedej where high on mountain tops a type of Demon is said to reside and that these Demons are really a means of releasing what the book called “Obsidian Eggs”. These Obsidian Eggs are said to be sections or pieces of a lower universe yet a far larger and more complex universe then the one we live in. The text also said despite seeming dense and heavy that these Obsidian Eggs are actually hollow and that this hollow emptiness is both alive and a means of two way entry between this world and the world it is a piece of.

We didn’t even bother to take anything of value, except the tiara from the Naga. We got out of there and reported to the Rangers right away. It was really strange and upsetting to me that this unknown Dwarf spent his last dying effort so he could talk to Damu and I and baring the message that I had to kill an old fuck buddy of mine, a rich and beautiful fuck buddy at that. It was more upsetting when we did kill her, but that’s another story.

A few days later after we got back to Scardale I ran into a Dwarf I knew at the Pawn shop we sold the tiara to. Franz Shieldsmith, an old Dwarf mercenary I knew who was spending his later years guarding the pawn shop for the Gnomes who owned it. I told him a bit about Grundy, what he looked like, and the strange black metal underwater ship we found. He freaked the fuck out and pulled an axe on me saying that if I ever told anyone about what I saw that he’d lead an army of Dwarves and kill me. Well old Franz died a few years ago. I really don’t know what freaked him out so bad, but I heard that a few months later that Franz and about 50 Dwarven mercenaries went down to Fensport destroyed Grundy’s tower. They bombarded the place with cannon fire until it collapsed. Sense then a Dwarven owned ship building yard was built over the place.

I guess even the culture of work hard and play hard has its secrets its likes to keep buried.

The Great Battle of Gotmas. by Builds & Guilds

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